First Short Written Exercise
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Dec 6, 2023
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First Short Written Exercise PHIL 200 – Fall 2021 Answer exactly one of the below questions. Indicate at the beginning of the paper which question you have chosen by specifying the list number of the question (1, 2, 3, or 4). Please do not add your name to the paper or file name, to allow for anonymous grading. Your paper must not be longer than 500 words (excluding bibliography). Free Will: 1.
What is compatibilism? Explain briefly. Then outline one of the main objections
to compatibilism discussed in class and in our readings. 2.
According to compatibilism, what is the defining mark of a free action? – Explain and discuss. Personal Identity: 1.
Give a brief but clear and careful statement of animalism. What is, in your mind,
the most important objection to the view? 2.
Briefly explain the difference between psychological connectedness and psychological continuity. Can the notion of psychological continuity help solve the fission problem for psychological accounts? Soft Determinism (compatibilism notes)
Free Will and Determinism are compatible with eachother we just have a wrong definition.
According to soft determinism free doesn’t mean uncaused
Our first mistake was trying to create a divide between hard determinism and libertarianism. “we can have our cake and eat it too.”
Whether an action is free is decided by what cause it has
Determinists and libertarians will argue that all causes should be treated the same
“a free action is one that is caused in the right way”
o
However say you were hypnotized in wanting to hurt someone it obviously wouldn’t be a free action but under
Stanford Notes
In the case of being given a choice of dying or killing someone you still did freely choose to kill another person instead of dying yourselves. The reason people find it understandable and not “your fault” is because we can imagine ourselves doing the same in their position.
Int/Exp
Hard determinism is the idea that all production of ones actions do not originate from one’s self, but rather from a series of processes and systems bound by the laws of physics
that predetermine our actions. That there is no free will. On the other side of this argument exists libertarianism which rejects determinism and proposes the idea that humans are special and our actions occur uncaused by the events leading up to it.
The existence of compatibilism stems from a seemingly unsolvable dilemma residing between free will and determinism. Determinism asserts that all actions have a cause, a thesis, if true, would mean that all human behaviour is determined; there is no free will. Libertarianism, on the other hand, declares that humans have free will by rejecting determinism entirely and declaring that humans are not fully subject to the laws of nature. However, to someone with no spiritual belief, the complete rejection of science concerning humans seems absurd, so another view related to determinism and separate from libertarianism exists. Compatibilism (also known as soft determinism) puts forth that determinism is true but our actions can still be free provided they are "caused in the right way” (T. Sider, p.127). Although compatibilism may initially seem like a complete solution to the issue of free will, several issues quickly arise. The first of these issues is the question of what being “caused in the right way” means. Sider provides a rough definition that “a free action is one that is
caused by the person’s beliefs and desires.” (p.128) This definition, at first, seems to fix several of the issues that exist with the compatibilist position. For example, if I choose to drink a cup of coffee, according to this definition it would be a free act. However, if I am held at gunpoint and told to drink the same cup of coffee against my will, that would be defined as unfree within this frameset. Both of these examples align with our general concept of free will. Nonetheless, an argument consistently used against
this definition is the case of hypnotism. Suppose you are hypnotized into believing that you want to drink a cup of coffee. The ensuing action of drinking the coffee would come from your desires and beliefs yet clearly be unfree. Furthermore, there are people with
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certain mental conditions that will always compel them to act in certain ways. When a kleptomaniac
steals, they are not freely choosing to do so, yet under this definition, they appear to be. So, to solve this predicament we need a new definition that states that free action comes from your own beliefs and desires, provided that you were not compelled to have those beliefs and desires. But this definition brings with it even more issues. I specifically appreciate the quote from Sider “humans are not an island.” (p.130) Human desires will always be influenced by the culture and people around them, so how can we know which actions stem from one’s own beliefs and not from those around them?
Overall, compatibilism does deserve to be critically observed and respected as much as other views on free will. The alternatives of libertarianism, where we reject science, and hard determinism, where we reject all that gives life meaning, do not seem particularly appealing. However, compatibilists need to refine their definition of free will to account for cases such as hypnotism and the compulsions that certain mental health disorders create.
Arguments
o
Compatibilism can be best described as an answer to the free will problem that embraces both the concepts of free will and determinism.
Typically, there is a hard line drawn between hard determinism and libertarianism where all of our actions are, respectively, either unfree or entirely free. All actions are treated the same. Compatibilism allows for both of these ideas to coexist by saying that different
actions should clearly be treated differently as well Arg
Opinions
Conc
Sources
Conee, Earl Brink, and Theodore Sider, “Free Will and Determinism.” Essay. In Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#FreeWillProbCausDete